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Thursday, August 28, 2014

My friend, Steve Froikin, had a sharp critique of my previous post. I am bringing his comments immediately below and then my reply.

Again, if you're not into finer points of biblical grammar, you may want to skip this, although I hope you don't!

Steve said:

I don’t buy it for two reasons (sorry
for rendering the Hebrew in English characters, but I can’t get it
to work as mixed Hebrew and English text).

Basically you are
saying that ETCHEM is the object of the verb YISHAL[CHA]. I put “CHA”
in brackets to emphasize that YISHAL already has an object: CHA—“he
will ask [you].” It would be very peculiar to have a second object,
ETCHEM, that performs the same function. It is doubly peculiar to
have that second object separated so far from the verb. And it is
triply peculiar that the intervening text contains a verb, TZIVAH,
that now lacks an object because you have attached it to the more
distant YISHAL. ETCHEM makes total sense as the object of TZIVAH and
is triply strained to read it as the object of YISHAL.

Your
comparison of the Deut. 6 text with the Deut. 5 text doesn’t seem
valid to me. In the Deut. 5 text you have a wayward object (ETCHEM).
In the Deut. 5 text you have a wayward verb (or gerund, or whatever
you want to call it: LEIMOR). Unfortunately, you stopped quoting
Deut. 5 at a critical point. What you omitted, was a kind of object
to the verb LEIMOR (namely, quotation of the ten commandments). In
other words, Deut. 5 inserted the parenthetical “for you were
frightened in the face of the fire and you didn't go up on the mount”
prior to LEIMOR because to do otherwise would have separated LEIMOR
from its object (the quote). I actually see Deut. 5 supporting the
proposition that verbs and their objects need to be close
together.

By this reasoning, the wise son is still excluding
himself from the community.

And here is my reply:

You make some strong points and you
added one more to me privately – namely that the object אתכם
(to you – plural) does not agree with the earlier object of
'you' (singular) in the word ישאלך.
This latter point was one I thought to bring up myself but was
frankly too tired by the time I finished the post.

In any event, I will try to defend this
position although I acknowledge it is not the obvious reading of the
verse.

The fact that אתכם
seems to be repetitive according to this reading is not
unprecedented. Thus we see this verse:

Genesis
Chapter 30 (20) And Leah said, God has given me a choice gift to
me. This time my husband will exalt me for I have borne him six
sons. And she called his name Z'vulun.

Standard translations will not bring
the extra 'to me' since it is understood in context as not adding
meaning. Although it may be peculiar, as you point out, it is not
unknown in biblical Hebrew. See, also, Jeremiah 27:8 for another
example.

The fact that אתכם
is plural while ישאלך is
singular seems more troubling. However, plural and singular do not
always agree in biblical Hebrew.

Look at the beginning of our chapter
(Deuteronomy 6), verses 1 and 2 (For the sake of brevity, I am not bringing a
translation here):

These two verses constitute a single
sentence. Note that when Moshe is addressing the people
here he first addresses them in the plural but later in the sentence
addresses them in the singular. (Note, also, in the second half of
verse two it says “...that I commanded you, you and
your son and the son of your son...”, the second 'you' being
repetitive.)

If you continue in the chapter, you
will see the same pattern such as in v.4 and v.5 which is familiar to
us as the beginning of the Sh'ma. Verses 10-12 are in the singular
and then 13 is in the plural. You will see this switch over the next
several verses, as well.

But perhaps the best example is the
verse immediately following the question of the son:

Deuteronomy
Chapter 6 (21) And you (singular) will say to your
(singular) son, We
were slaves in Egypt to Pharaoh and the Lord took us
out of Egypt with a strong arm.

You might say that in this latter verse
the response 'you' give is in the plural because you (singular) are
telling the story of the nation as a whole. Yet, the verse could have just as easily said 'to your (plural) sons.' I understand that the
'we' could be understood collectively and not specifically about the
person telling the answer. All I need to do, though, is to point out
that it can be understood the way I have explained.

I think it is fair to say that the
Torah, particularly in this context, was not trying to make singular
and plural match. You can interpret each case where they don't match
as having particular significance, but you can also say on the p'shat
level that, at least in this context, they are interchangeable. This
singular/plural issue appears many places throughout Tanach.

As far as the word צוה
not having an object according to R. Hoffmann's reading:
Actually, according to his reading, the object precedes the verb. The
verse says:

Deuteronomy
6:20 When
your son asks tomorrow saying: What are the testimonies and the
statutes and the judgments that the Lord our God commanded you?

The
'testimonies, statutes and judgments' are the object of the verb
'commanded.' According to the more popular reading you are defending,
the 'to you' at the end is an indirect object. Biblical grammar does
not demand an indirect object. (I'm sure you'll correct me if I'm
wrong about the direct and indirect object here—but I think I got
it right). The Torah has many examples of things being commanded
without an indirect object stated. For example:

Exodus
Chapter 16(16)This is the thing
that the Lord commanded:
Gather from it each person according to what he eats, an omer
to a person for as many of you as there are; each of you shall fetch
for those in his tent.

The
verse doesn't say 'This is the thing that the Lord commanded to
you.'
Thus, one can argue in our verse that the אתכם
('to
you') at the end does not necessarily refer back to the verb צוה
('command').

As
far as differentiating between the example of אתכם
being
separated by a long clause from the verb at the beginning of the
sentence and לאמר
being
separated by a long clause at the beginning – I think this it is
valid to point this out. I admit that I haven't yet found the word
אתכם
or
a variant separated by such a clause elsewhere in Tanach (although I
am still looking). However, I think, with all the other points I
made, that it is not wrong to see אתכם
as
belonging to ישאלך.

I
believe this is a reasonable defense of the interpretation of R.
Hoffmann. I understand it feels strained, but I think it is valid. If
I find more precise proof texts, I will share them.

Also,
I will point out again that even according to the more simple reading
of the verse, this son does not entirely exclude himself from the
community. He still recognizes that the Lord is 'our God.' One can
say that he doesn't realize that he, too, is commanded. Or, he might
think that due to his age he is not yet commanded.

Thus,
we have this interpretation: “And it will be when your son asks you
(אתכם)
tomorrow saying: What are the testimonies and the statutes and the
judgments that the Lord our God commanded?”

After
all this, though, I will bring in the next post a different point
that does not upset the syntax of the verse.

Sunday, August 24, 2014

As promised, I
will show you two approaches of how the M'chilta came to
understand that the Evil Son's question is taken to exclude himself
from the community while the Wise Son's does not. This gets a bit
technical so if you're not into grammatical and syntactical issues in
Tanach, you may want to just gloss this over.

If you are into this stuff, though,
read it and tell me what you think.

Let's first understand exactly what the
problem is. The Torah itself tells the Children of Israel in various
places that at some point in the future their children will ask them
questions: Questions about the Exodus, about the ritual of the
Passover, about observing the Torah altogether.

The M'chilta understood that
each of the questions is not only distinct, but that each child
asking a question is distinct from the others.

The M'chilta interprets the
question of “What is this service to you?” (Exodus 12:26) as
being asked by an Evil Son. How do they know he is evil? Precisely
because he says 'to you' and not 'to us,' thereby excluding himself
from the wider community.

However, we know that just prior in the
midrash, the question of the Wise Son is “What
are the testimonies and the statutes and the judgments that the Lord
our God commanded you?”
(Deuteronomy 6:20). So the Wise Son seems to exclude himself, as
well. Why doesn't the M'chilta
consider this son to be Evil and, in fact, considers him to be wise?

I
am aware of the fact that the Septuagint, as we
have it, has the verse of the Wise Son saying 'commanded us'
at the end instead of 'commanded you.'
This is interesting but of limited value. It is possible that the
Septuagint was translating from an earlier version of the text which
one may claim was the text in front of the M'chilta.
It is also possible that the translator of the Septuagint changed the
word in order to avoid the very problem we are dealing with or some
other issue. Differences between the Septuagint and the Masoretic
text (the text that Jews use for the Tanach)
abound and are often not even as subtle as this.

Moreover,
the Masoretic text was actively being redacted at the time of R.
Yishmael and his school of learning (1st
-
2nd
century C.E.). The M'chilta
we are studying is a product of the school of learning of R.
Yishmael. While we don't know precisely the text they had in front of
them, it is not unlikely that for Deuteronomy it is the same text we
have now.

If
it is true that the M'chilta
had the text of Deuteronomy saying 'commanded you,' then our question
is why did the M'chilta
purposely change the text to read 'commanded us'? At first glance,
it just feels like the midrash
manipulates the text of the Torah to fit its scheme of distinguishing
between the Wise and Evil sons.

However,
it is possible that the M'chilta
simply understood the implication of the verse saying 'commanded you'
differently. As such, they changed it to read 'commanded us' in order
to point to the proper intent of the text.

On
what basis would the M'chilta
change the reading in the Torah?

Here
is the first of two possibilities, each based on careful readings of
the verse. The verse in question is, again:

Deuteronomy
6:20 When
your son asks tomorrow saying: What are the testimonies and the
statutes and the judgments that the Lord our God commanded you?

The
Haggadah Shleimah
of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Kasher brings an explanation
from Rabbi David Tzvi Hoffmann from the latter's book Beit
Vaad L'chachamim.
Rabbi Hoffmann points out that the entire verse (like nearly all of
the book of Deuteronomy) is being spoken by Moshe to the Children of
Israel. He says that the word אתכם
(you)
is not to be read as part of the question of the son; rather, it is
Moshe finishing the beginning of the verse which is addressed to the
Children of Israel.

In
other words, don't read the verse in the order it is translated
above. Rather, read it as saying: “When your son asks you (אתכם)
tomorrow saying: What are the testimonies and the statutes and the
judgments that the Lord our God commanded?”

Moshe
assumed that the question would not be posed to him. After all, he
knew he would not live much longer and would not see a future
Passover celebration. He was saying that the question will be posed
to you (speaking
to the Children of Israel),
when
your children start asking questions.

You
might say that's a nifty trick but it breaks up the sentence in a
frightfully awkward fashion. Consider, though, that other verses in
the Torah have similar syntax. You don't have to go further than the
previous chapter:

Deuteronomy
Chapter 5 (5) I (was) standing between the Lord and you at that time
to tell you the word of the Lord, for you were frightened in the face
of the fire and you didn't go up on the mount, saying:

Even though the word 'saying' is all the way at the end
of sentence, it is really coming to finish the beginning part of the
sentence. I added the comma between the word 'mount' and 'saying' in
my translation in order to make sense of the syntax.

The
verse effectively says “I (was) standing between the Lord and you
at that time to tell you the word of the Lord saying:” The way the
verse is written the part that says “for you were frightened in the
face of the fire and you didn't go up on the mount” interrupts
these two parts of the beginning of the sentence. It is coming to
explain why Moshe stood between the people and the Lord. But the end
of the verse brings us back to his original statement and finishes it
off.

In
our case, according to this comment of Rabbi Hoffmann, the M'chilta
understood the syntax of the verse in question to be similarly broken
up. The word אתכם,
even though it appears at the end of the sentence, is actually part
of the beginning of the sentence.

According
to this approach, the M'chilta
understood that the son mentioned in the verse was not excluding
himself. He includes
himself by speaking of 'the Lord our
God.' The word אתכם
(you)
is changed to אותנו
(us)
as if to say that when Moshe delivered this sentence he said the
question that your children will ask will be to 'you,' meaning our forefathers. But we are
reading it now and so the question is directed to us.

That's
the first approach. I will bring the other approach in my next post.

Friday, August 8, 2014

This post is dedicated to my newest
granddaughter, רות (Rut-- pronounced
like 'root'), daughter of Dorin and Ezra Bassel and sister to Zoharia Yam
and Shir. May she be a blessing for all of us.

Although
I hadn't planned the timing
of this part of the series which deals with the Evil Son, I find it
particularly apt given that right now in Israel we are confronted by
Evil in the form of Hamas fighters. Jews in various parts of the
world are further confronted by Evil in the form of mass
demonstrations not only against Israel's actions in Gaza but against
the existence of the State of Israel and the existence of Jews
anywhere they may be. We are also dealing with certain Evils within our
own society including hatred of Arabs and anyone seen as the 'enemy.' As
I progress in this analysis, I will touch
upon the meaning of Evil and some important questions surrounding it.
Perhaps these insights will help us to deal with Evil in its various
forms and help form a better world.

NOTE: If you are joining this blog for the first time, you should read from the beginning of the series. As you finish each post, just click on "Newer Post" way down on the left side of the page.

We now go from wisdom to evil. As I pointed out earlier, the various sons do not seem to have opposites; that
is, we don't have a Wise Son and a Stupid Son (although in some
versions a Stupid Son comes in place of the Tam—but let's leave
that for now). Nonetheless, the Evil Son seems to directly contrast
with the Wise Son.

What does the Evil Son ask that is so
evil? Let's look at him in the Torah context:

Exodus Chapter 12 (26) And
it will be that when your sons say to you, “What is this service to
you?” (27) And you will say, “It is the Passover sacrifice for
the Lord who passed over (or: took mercy) on the houses of the
Children of Israel in Egypt in his smiting of Egypt and he saved our
houses.” And the people lowered their foreheads and bowed.

These two verses come in the wider
context of the mitzvot regarding the first Passover as well as
Passover as it is to be celebrated in the generations following. As I mentioned,
God already gives Moshe a central reason for the plagues: To tell
future generations about them (v. Exodus 10:2).

Thus, when we come to these verses, our
simple understanding is that the Torah is telling us what to expect
from any of our children when they see the extraordinary preparations
for Passover and the celebration itself. The answer we are to give
(v. 27) fits in perfectly with this idea. We say that we do the
service of Passover in reference to how God saved us in Egypt while
He carried out the plagues against the Egyptians.

So how does the M'chilta come to
see this as the question of the Evil Son and not just of any given
child?

First, let's point out some significant
differences between the wording of this verse and the verse of the
Wise Son.

Deuteronomy
6:20 When
your son asks tomorrow saying: What are the testimonies and the
statutes and the judgments that the Lord our God commanded you?

Note that the Wise Son asks a
question; the language of the verse specifies that he will ask.
Asking implies genuine curiosity, interest and a willingness to
learn.

In
our verse here in Exodus 12, the question is not asked-- it is said.
In other words, it's not really a question on the part of this son –
it is a declaration, a kind of rhetorical question. The implication
is that the one saying it is not really looking for an answer. He is
looking to make a statement.

Another
difference is that only one person asks the Wise Son's question (the
verse says 'your son' in the singular) whereas the Evil Son's
question/statement is made by many ('your sons' in the plural). I
will deal in a later post with this aspect of plurality.

We
also see that the question/statement here is broad and simple, if not
simplistic: What is this service to you? By contrast, the Wise Son
included in his question the notion that the service is subdivided
into various categories of mitzvah (testimonies, statutes,
judgments).

The
M'chilta emphasizes yet
another point. The midrash
focuses on the word לכם
(lachem –
to you) and understands that by
using this term, this son has excluded himself from the community.
Here is the M'chilta:

The
Evil, what does he say?
“What is this service to you?” To you and not to him. And since
he removed himself from the community and denied the essence, so you
break his power (literally 'blunt his teeth') and say to him 'because
of this the Lord did for me
in my going out of Egypt (Exodus 13:8).' For me
and not for you; had
you been there you would not have been redeemed.

Because
this son has used language which excludes himself, we also exclude
him. The question/declaration tells us that he does not want any part
of what he is witnessing in the form of the Passover practice.

What
is evil about the Evil Son? Mainly that he excludes himself from the
tribe. By doing so, he has 'denied the essence' (כפר
בעיקר). The
essence, then, must be about the unity of the tribe and one who
removes himself from the tribe is, perforce, evil.

Thus,
the M'chilta's answer
is strikingly different than the Torah's answer. Whereas the Torah's
answer points to a general summary of how God protected and saved us
in the going out from Egypt, the M'chilta's
answer is a strong rebuke to this son.

The
Torah's answer tells us how to respond by helping the son to see this
service in the scope of his heritage. The M'chilta's
answer responds by effectively excluding the Evil Son from the same
heritage.

Why is
belonging to the community 'the essence,' the main thing? Why is a
person who excludes himself from the community not worthy of
redemption? We'll look at these questions in a later post.

My
next post, though, will explain why we interpret the Evil Son's use
of the term 'you' as exclusionary while we don't when it is used by
the Wise Son.